jogging with my pet

   What is the secret of your weight loss? – This is the most common question put to a person who has successfully reduced his/her weight and whose Body Mass Index (BMI) is within the bracket. He/she is now the center of all looks and a role model for many who have outgrown their clothes. Long back weight-watchers conducted a survey and many common points were highlighted. Here are some of the most common practices adopted by those weight losers which might prove immensely useful to you if you are one of the aspiring candidates for weight loss. These are their secrets – extremely easy to follow and implement.

   Useful Tips by Successful Weight Losers

Tip 1: Drinking Water is an Indispensable Part of Weight Loss Program

   This is a platinum tip for weight loss.

    a. Between meals, if you feel hungry, drink water. If your hunger is essential or true, it will remain. If your hunger is not real, it will fade away within 20 minutes and you will be saved from the onslaught of unrequired calories.
    b. Don't drink water immediately after a meal or snack. Let it be provided by your gastric juice.
    c. If your constitution is chilly, drink hot (warm) water. If you are a hot person, drink cold water. The body loses calories when it tries to bring the temperature of water to normal body temperature.
    d. Splash up your water with a few drops of lemon juice. It helps to increase the metabolic rate and burn fat. Even as a routine, if you add a slice of a fruit to your water, it imparts a flavor to the water and it becomes tasty and more pleasant to drink.

   e. Don't overdrink. Don't drink soft drinks with artificial ingredients. They make you feel uneasy and insane, and they cause unhealthy changes in your normal hunger and eating patterns.

Tip 2: Dealing with Craving for Between-the-Meal Snacks

   Never starve yourself. Having binges and cravings during a weight loss regime is very common. To deal with them,
   a. Always start your intake with water as given in Tip 1.
    b. Always keep a bowl ready (container if you are on the move) with chopped fruits and veggies. Whenever you feel tempted to put something in your mouth, grab a bite of these things.

   c. Go bonkers once for every ten - twelve healthy meals, not frequently! 😢This will help to break the monotony. The body loves to have a zigzag calorie pattern during weight loss.

Tip 3: You Can't Lose Weight Unless You Study Your Food Type and Quantity

   This is the golden tip for weight loss. Failing to plan is planning to fail. Make it a habit to calculate your calories before you eat rather than after! Do you think two teaspoons of everything contains equal calories? No. Go through the following chart. It gives the calorie content of different foods per 30 grams. You will have to admit that the calorie intake depends on the quality of food rather than the quantity. Make yourself familiar with these different categories of food and try to choose the food from higher up in the category list.



 * Calories per 30 gm

  Sugar: 115 cal                                Honey: 86 cal
Carrot: 14 cal                                Orange Juive: 14 cal
Tomato: 6 Cal                               Veggies: 18 cal
Tea/Coffee: 10 cal                         Green Tea: 2 cal
Whole Milk: 18 cal                       Milk Shake: 32 cal
Boiled Egg: 44 cal                         Fried Egg: 70 cal
Wheat Bread: 70 cal                     Cooked Spaghetti: 20 cal
Cheese: 130 cal                              Ketchup: 40 cal
Pancake: 60 cal                            Cheesecake/Chocolate Cake: 100 cal
Butter Cookie: 140 cal                  Marshmallows: 100 cal
Ghee: 270 cal                               Chocolate: 155 cal
Oatmeal plain cooked: 20 cal       Almonds: 160 cal
Pizza/Hotdog/Burger: 80 cal        Potato Chips: 150
Breakfast Sausage: 50 cal              S’mores: 60 cal
Cronut: 150 cal                              Fried Chicken: 85 cal   
Mac and Cheese: 32 cal                 Ice-cream: 66 cal
Bacon: 180 cal                                 Waffle: 95 cal

Tip 4: Be Honest with Yourself

   Be totally honest about tracking everything you eat. There is no point in pretending to yourself that you didn't eat that extra serving. Be accountable for everything you eat. You can fool yourself but not your scale. Make a public chart of your accomplishments (on the left) and your failures (on the right side). That surely helps! 😏

Tip 5: Set Smaller Goals

   In toto, you wish to lose 20 – 50 – 100 pounds. That’s fine. At the moment, aim to lose just one pound only. Every pound lost builds up your confidence, this will keep you motivated. It is like hiking. We aim to reach the mountain top but keep an eye on the five feet ahead.

   Keep a jar on (or even inside) your refrigerator. For every one pound lost, put a pebble in it. Look at it and rejoice as their number increases steadily.

Tip 6: Starting Food of the Day: Most Important

   This is another golden secret. If you start your day with a healthy breakfast like fruits, boiled eggs, oatmeal, malt, raagi, sprouts etc, you will feel motivated to eat a healthy lunch and dinner for the rest of the day. On the other hand, if you start off your day eating unhealthy or heavy food like cookies, cakes, pastries, margarine, ice-cream, processed meat or cheese, food containing refined flour, refined oil or trans fats, processed food, fructose corn syrup, bacon etc, you will be motivated to eat junk food throughout the day. This increases your risk of obesity, exactly the opposite of what you aim for. Eating a healthy breakfast is the utmost important as it sets the trend of eating right at the onset of the day. This is also one of the best remedies to control binges.

Tip 7: Weighing Machine Tips

   Do not weigh yourself daily! Once a week is good enough. Try to measure weight on the SAME machine, at the SAME place, at the SAME time of the day. Don't keep room for even minor fluctuations and subsequent doubts. Patience is virtue. Visible weight loss begins with an invisible sense of feeling light and energetic initially.

Tip 8: Forgive Yourself

   Losing weight is to fight a battle with your best friend – Food. There are times when your friend scores over you and a feeling of guilt overtakes. Doesn't matter. This was just one bad day. Every day is a fresh day with a new goal. Focus on the things you have accomplished so far. Challenge yourself and at the end of the day, you will emerge victorious.

Tip 9: Breaking a Plateau

   When your weight loss graph hits a straight line, you will like giving up. This is very unnerving. Don't let these stalemate situations dictate your enthusiasm for weight loss. When you feel that your weight reduction process is stalled, it's time to reshuffle your food choices. Frequently make changes to the choice of food items you eat, have a lot of variety, shuffle them a lot. There is absolutely no harm in giving yourself a break and having something like a chocolate truffle once in a while, always keeping in mind how much additional exercise you need to work off to burn those extra calories you consumed. As said earlier, don't let your body get used to any routine. Change your food and exercise in terms of i) pattern  ii) timing and  iii) duration frequently.

Tip 10: Enough Sleep is a Must

   Life doesn't come with a handbook. But if it did, this would be the first guideline followed by Tip 6. If your night sleep is not refreshing, a nap in the noon is most advisable. Avoiding late night food is also as important, unfortunately many weight losers tend to ignore this.

Tip 11: Add Multivitamin-Multimineral Supplements to Your Daily Schedule

   Losing weight involves multiple factors and deficiency of a single vitamin or mineral can apply a break to your weight loss process. Take these supplements at least 3-4 times a week and maintain your blood level of vitamins. Many good brands are available like Dr Tobias Multivitamin, Amway Nutralite Daily, Life's Fortune, Centrum Adult, GNC Womans Ultra Mega, GNC Mega Men, you can take any one of those.

Additional Useful Tips for Weight Loss:

1. Do not go to the market hungry and do not watch the food network at night. 😋
 2. Never think that you are on a diet. Say that you have simply adopted a healthier diet pattern which is the truth.
 3. Take the stairs wherever possible. Going against gravity is a great exercise, absolutely free of charge. Wherever possible, walk rather than drive.
 4. Maintaining a diet log or journal helps you to find holes in your eating habits.
 5. Weight doesn't always come down at a steady rate. Stay in the game and you will see the results. You may be gaining muscle (good thing) while losing fat.
 6. NEVER EVER starve. Nothing is achieved on an empty stomach, not even weight loss.
 7. Don't let night time do 'undo' all your work. Make a habit of chewing beetle leaves and amla to counteract night cravings.
 8. Do a lot of garden work.
 9. Staying busy is a sure way to stop boredom grazing or nibbling. Become a clean freak, it will give a double benefit.
 10. View hunger as a call from burning fat cells. Go back and read Tip 1 again.
 11. Portion control is more effective than total deprivation.
    In the end, one should note that the process of losing weight has huge peaks and lows, slip-ups and tantrums. The process is more mental than physical. There are underprivileged people who do not receive even their daily portion of food. Then why can't we sacrifice a bit for our own well-being? 


    Do you think the routine you follow is a healthy one? Calculate your health score here. The better your health score, the faster your weight loss will be.



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